STUART PEARCE will reveal today whether he intends to take Andy Carroll to the Under-21 Championship when he names his provisional England squad for this summer’s tournament.

All the indications are Liverpool striker Carroll will be in the 40-man party announced by Pearce at Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium.

The England U21 head coach has already said he wants both Carroll and Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere involved at the finals in Denmark, despite vocal opposition from Gunners boss Arsene Wenger.

Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish has refused to give an opinion on Carroll’s selection until the £35million striker is actually named in the squad.

The views of Carroll, who scored his first senior international goal in March’s friendly against Ghana, are also unclear but Wilshere has made no secret of the fact he would love to be involved.

“It can only be good for my career,” he said in March.

“If you look at the Germans, when they won the Under-21 tournament, they went to the World Cup and had such a good tournament.

“It’s important to start winning international tournaments early and hopefully you can take it to the world stage.”

Wenger believes Wilshere, who now has four senior caps, should no longer be considered for the Under-21s and fears the 19-year-old could suffer burnout after a gruelling season.

But Pearce wants the strongest possible squad available to him and recent results would suggest that is imperative, with England’s sole victory since qualifying coming in the only game where they did not suffer a raft of withdrawals - March’s 4-0 thrashing of Denmark.

That squad, supplemented by Wilshere and Carroll, would automatically be one of the favourites for the tournament, along with Group B rivals Spain.

Pearce said in March: “We would look slightly amateurish maybe if we decide to leave our best players at home because we generate this myth that we play more football than anybody else and all of a sudden maybe Spain turn up in our group and they might have a World Cup winner in their ranks.”

England play their final pre-tournament friendly against Norway in Southampton on June 5.

Their Under-21 Championship campaign begins a week later against Spain in Herning, where they will also face Ukraine three days later before taking on Czech Republic in Viborg on June 19.

The top two in the group will progress to the semi-finals, with the final taking place on June 25.